And Boom Goes The Dynamite

Holy mother of god, is this story going to set off a Category 5 shitstorm.

But videos shot by Army medevac helicopter crewmen show no Taliban in that vicinity or anywhere else on the floor of the Ganjgal Valley at the time and location of the "swarm." The videos also conflict with the version of the incident in Marine Corps and White House accounts of how Meyer, now 25, of Columbia, Ky., came to be awarded the nation's highest military decoration for gallantry. The videos add to the findings of an ongoing McClatchy investigation that determined that crucial parts of Meyer's memoir were untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated, as were the Marine Corps and White House accounts of how he helped extract casualties from the valley under fire. The White House and Marine Corps have defended the accuracy of their accounts of Meyer's actions. The Marine Corps declined to comment on the videos. Army National Guard Sgt. Kevin Duerst, the helicopter crew chief whose helmet camera recorded one of the videos, confirmed the absence of insurgents on the valley floor as the aircraft flew in on a first run to retrieve casualties. "We totally flew over everything. . . . There was nothing going on down there," Duerst said in a telephone interview Friday. "There was no serious gunfight going on."

Let us establish one thing at the outset. The writer, Jonathan S. Landay, is as good as it gets. He was one of the few people who cut through the bullshit that was being peddled to lie the country into Iraq, and he did it while serious people like Tim Russert were waiting by the phone for someone to call. If he says this is what his reporting concludes, then this is what his reporting concludes, and the White House and the Marine Corps have the burden of proof to bear, and no-comment isn't going to cut it.

This, alas, is some of what results from the unthinking adulation of the troops. This is a product of the steady militarization of our national political pageant and of our large national spectacles, especially the sporty ones. (If she were alive today, Leni Riefenstahl would be working for NFL Films.) There has been an unhealthy suspension of democratic skepticism in this very important area.

That being said, these revelations are going explode in a lot of directions. (If I had to bet a decent longshot, I'd say this story will get folded into the fauxtrage about the WWII Memorial as an example of how the press, those liberal bastards, hate the troops.) Landay has earned the benefit of a couple hundred doubts. This is a helluva piece of work.

Charles P. PierceCharles P Pierce is the author of four books, mostly recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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